So without SETA how do you not get utterly fed up building a trading empire?

[shadowrunner85]

tl;dr - theres alot X could improve on that freelancer got right the first time over a decade ago. if seta is removed, factory ownership will become void because they wont even return on their cost in the duration of the game.

Don't you think the developers would have considered balancing factory cost/revenue?

C'mon people, a little common sense is in order here!

Rebirth isn't just X3 with a few changes, the game is being rebuilt from the ground up.

Build times, factory/ship/module costs, revenue generation, ect; everything is going to be balanced around the fact that there is no more SETA. They aren't going to just copypasta the values from X3 into Rebirth.

+1 "this"

[Mightysword]

tl;dr - theres alot X could improve on that freelancer got right the first time over a decade ago. if seta is removed, factory ownership will become void because they wont even return on their cost in the duration of the game.

Build times, factory/ship/module costs, revenue generation, ect; everything is going to be balanced around the fact that there is no more SETA. They aren't going to just copypasta the values from X3 into Rebirth.

And don't forget that not everyone is a SETA player. Yes, I use SETA when I travel around albeit once I get the jumpdrive the SETA is mainly used for travel from a gate to land at a station. Yet I don't see any de-efficiency in my factory. It takes a few days for me to see the fab to turn a profit, but to me that's normal. Factories are passive money maker and it supposes to take a while.

I figure people who plob down a factory and want to see a 3 folds profit in return the next morning would feel differently.

[Shrewd135]

Eve - heck, MMORPG's in general - are about bored, insecure people (or at least acting stupid) trying to impress at best, defeat at worst, other bored, insecure people while smart people make a profit off the whole thing (did I just describe humanity?!).

There is legitimate fun to be had in building something up, in watching things grow and in sorting out the problems that arise as part of this process and which cannot be experienced in any other way. Without a trading aspect, people would never experience how much fun can be had scouring the world for minable resources, running from pirates in a trade ship, watching their stations come into view or watching everything mill about them by their design and doing. That's what the philosophy of X (at least its 'build' aspect) should be.

Eve and MMORPG's are disgusting because for them this process is not about personal expression and creativity, but keeping these qualities down until a person has expended enough money 'grinding' the game to 'deserve' to be among the 'elite' where these things really happen. Lets face it, most people playing Eve or WoW just want to go raiding or fighting massive space battles, and the game just abuses these motivations by putting an artificial price on achieving them.

In these games, typically, it is not about watching emergent gameplay or designing intricate scenarios, nor is it about building and design and the problems that come with it. Building an empire in X has always felt a bit like engineering, although this aspect has often been undermined by tedium and poor design. In Eve or WoW, you are not a designer, engineer or creator - you are a cog in a wheel of players who wish to dominate other players for fun and to keep them in line.

It's like all the worst in humanity finds its way into these games. I despise them and I despise the tendencies of many on these forums to compete with each other as well. X should not be about competition between players and SETA and other features should not be limited/controlled to facilitate that. It should be about building another world and in our personal enclaves, in this post-reality, there is no zero sum on the worlds we create.

That is exactly my perspective, said much more completely and eloquently, specifically the part about creating, and engineering. I have played WAY too many MMORPGS, and I know they all eventually become just an abusive relationship with you on the bad side for the most part. In general, I really do not like the fact that someone else is telling me how to play, and what I should or should not be allowed to do.

In the end, I am sure there will still be an engineering (incorrectly labeled cheat) window scripted uo... but I like the concept of the trading networks, its just really slow all around. If I had 24 hours a day to play, it would still be slow in eve...

[shadowrunner85]

Eve - heck, MMORPG's in general - are about bored, insecure people (or at least acting stupid) trying to impress at best, defeat at worst, other bored, insecure people while smart people make a profit off the whole thing (did I just describe humanity?!).
.

That is exactly my perspective, said much more completely and eloquently, specifically the part about creating, and engineering. I have played WAY too many MMORPGS, and I know they all eventually become just an abusive relationship with you on the bad side for the most part. In general, I really do not like the fact that someone else is telling me how to play, and what I should or should not be allowed to do.

In the end, I am sure there will still be an engineering (incorrectly labeled cheat) window scripted uo... but I like the concept of the trading networks, its just really slow all around. If I had 24 hours a day to play, it would still be slow in eve...

So what you say is that eve is to hard for you and you always end up on the lossing side, so it's a bad game? Ok, that was cruel, sry. But many ppl. Like to play in a univers where all the opponents are possible as good or better than you, and when you die there are real consicvens, and no reload button.

You should try eve again, because you both got it terrible wrong, you don't have to play the way others tell you, and you can with ease create more stuff inn eve than in any privies x games, stations, planetary installations, ships, tousends of weapons and modules. And then there are tousends of sub ingridiens you can mine, extract, react, combine and produce. The production and industry in eve is ekstreamly huge, and that you don't know this just tells me that you don't know the game.

It is a good thing that eve is slow, been playing for 6 years, and got myself a supercarrier (second largest ship), this way I always have a reason to come back to this game. And you don't need to play 24/7, play as a normal mission runner 2 hours a day, and you can by a grate fitted battleship every month. Or do planetary mining, basically does it self, you just start it, and collect minerals later. (it is a litle more complex than this if you what to earn the big money, but my point is, you can earn money on being strategic, you don't have to grind)

I realy don't what to way eve up with x, because there are to different games that I enjoy very much, and have way different gameplay. And with a mindblowing different budget. Eve is way harder than x just because in x, you are senter, there is save and load. And your opponents ai wont be competing with you the same way you compet with them. I play x sins it is complex, aye kandy(that eve will never match), and that the game pauses when I'm not playing.

[Shrewd135]

Actually I have grown out of the idea of meaningless competition for competitions sake. We would all be much better off if we just worked together rather than competed all the time. If you want to be better than me at a game, have at it. I get no enjoyment being better than you or anyone else, nor do I care if I am less than you.

I enjoy exploring the intricasies of a universe as time permits, and since I do not have infinite time just yet, and can see the possibilities easily and am not the type to accept waiting for something because a developer chose to make me wait (I am a developer), instead I prefer to just go get it or if it doesn't exist... to go make it.

[Drewgamer]

It is a good thing that eve is slow, been playing for 6 years, and got myself a supercarrier (second largest ship), this way I always have a reason to come back to this game. And you don't need to play 24/7, play as a normal mission runner 2 hours a day, and you can by a grate fitted battleship every month. Or do planetary mining, basically does it self, you just start it, and collect minerals later. (it is a litle more complex than this if you what to earn the big money, but my point is, you can earn money on being strategic, you don't have to grind)

That is my exactly problem with EVE (asside from the combat/flight system, but don't even get my started on that). It rewards people for how long they are subscribed to the game versus how much effort they put into the game.

In X games there is really no limit to what you can do (unless you count cash I guess). In EVE you are limited to what you can do depending on how long you've had an active account.

I think EVE would be an freakin awesome game if they put in a better flight control system (something that isn't point/click) and changed the skill system. But since that will never happen EVE is not going to the game for me.

But as you said, it's really hard to compare X with EVE because (apart from the Space Sim genre) they are very different games.

[shadowrunner85]

Actually I have grown out of the idea of meaningless competition for competitions sake. We would all be much better off if we just worked together rather than competed all the time. If you want to be better than me at a game, have at it. I get no enjoyment being better than you or anyone else, nor do I care if I am less than you.

I have to agree with you, thats way I like eve, it is not meaningless competition, you fight with your friends for territory, resources, survival and power on one huge server where your actions relay make an imprint, not one match after another for a "score".

That is my exactly problem with EVE (asside from the combat/flight system, but don't even get my started on that). It rewards people for how long they are subscribed to the game versus how much effort they put into the game.

yea the skill system is time based not effort based, witch I like, so I always skill up even when i'm not playing, and it takes like 2-3 months to fly your first battleship. but isk(money) you have to work for, so sure the game rewards you for playing. it is just more comfortable for us with a job, and cant do power level grinding.

In X games there is really no limit to what you can do (unless you count cash I guess). In EVE you are limited to what you can do depending on how long you've had an active account.

No, sry, it takes less than 1 day to get the skills(lvl) to go into any profession(witch is less than it takes to understand what you should do). but it can take months to be an expert in one field. and there is not classes in eve, so you can change profession any time without penalty. and anyway, how does this very from any other game, that ability's and game mechanics gets unlocked as you play along?

I think EVE would be an freakin awesome game if they put in a better flight control system (something that isn't point/click) and changed the skill system. But since that will never happen EVE is not going to the game for me.

droool, I have to agree with you there, and believe you me, the eve forums are flooded with this request, but the server as it is now cant handle that extremely increase in data.

But as you said, it's really hard to compare X with EVE because (apart from the Space Sim genre) they are very different games.

thinking through the debate on x and eve, I think it has come to and end. no way any one off us can debate another opinion in to each-other. some like eve for x reasons, and other X for y reasons, and someone like me enjoy bought x and y. my triers just goes of with comets like and not limited to: "Eve - heck, MMORPG's in general - are about bored, insecure people (or at least acting stupid) trying to impress at best, defeat at worst, other bored, insecure people while smart people make a profit off the whole thing (did I just describe humanity?!)."

[Drewgamer]

thinking through the debate on x and eve, I think it has come to and end. no way any one off us can debate another opinion in to each-other. some like eve for x reasons, and other X for y reasons, and someone like me enjoy bought x and y. my triers just goes of with comets like and not limited to: "Eve - heck, MMORPG's in general - are about bored, insecure people (or at least acting stupid) trying to impress at best, defeat at worst, other bored, insecure people while smart people make a profit off the whole thing (did I just describe humanity?!)."

MMOs are (for me at least) more about the social interaction. The gameplay is just a "delivery service" if you will. I've found that if I don't have anyone to enjoy the experience with, the experience generally sucks (or rather gets boring quite quickly).

[Rabiator der II.]

For me, turning on SETA to "fast forward" my income was never a particular attractive option.
In the beginning you might have two or three freighters, but no unitraders yet. So you need to direct them yourself and SETA would only get in the way.
Later, when you have a station or two and maybe some unitraders, there is always something to watch or fix, like stations running out of raw materials or peeking st the trading strategies of your unitraders.

In short, I was never bored enough to use SETA for passing the time...

[irR4tiOn4L]

First, I want to apologise to uninterested parties as this post probably gets in the way. If you will read the following, please remember that it is merely a long personal opinion and may induce deep disagreement which we won't be able to discuss in great length. I've posted this extremely long post as is to give a more detailed explanation of my rationale and views - a defence, if you will. If you feel that a long response is necessary even after reading what I have posted, please PM me or keep it short.

There is legitimate fun to be had in building something up, in watching things grow and in sorting out the problems that arise as part of this process and which cannot be experienced in any other way.

So you accept that putting effort into something within a game makes it more rewarding...

Eve and MMORPG's are disgusting because for them this process is not about personal expression and creativity, but keeping these qualities down until a person has expended enough money 'grinding' the game to 'deserve' to be among the 'elite' where these things really happen. Lets face it, most people playing Eve or WoW just want to go raiding or fighting massive space battles, and the game just abuses these motivations by putting an artificial price on achieving them.

...but then at the same time, mock people who put effort into a game.

I'm entertained.

I can see how you would be baffled if thought that the EFFORT ITSELF is where you derived the entertainment from.

But if you read my post carefully, you will realise I never said that. In fact, I said that this was the key distinguishing factor between MMORPGs and legitimate building games requiring effort, like X. The fact that you need to expend effort for its own sake in order to make the reward more rewarding is a perversion used by MMORPG's to approximate at best, suck money from people on the basis of at worst, the real creative process which, while requiring effort, is actually its own reward.

In really simple terms: MMORPG's require you to 'grind', doing repetetive activities that are not deep, meaningful or rewarding in themselves, in order to get to activities that are. It is a 'tax' on players' commitment, time and money in order to build both the internal player hierarchy of the game (those who expend most time become the elite of the community by virtue of their characters) and pad the coffers of the developers. What is telling is that grinding is never regarded as an end in itself. People even go online and use real cash to avoid it. How many cheats do you see offered for money online for X? How many for Eve, WoW or other MMORPG's if the developers dont shut it down?

In creative, sandbox games and simulators, what would be treated as 'grinding' in MMORPG's is treated as an end in itself (mostly). While it does take real effort to perform many tasks, the emergent gameplay that the developers build into doing these tasks is what makes the task itself its own reward.

In other words, flying a trade ship is not something you HAVE to do in X, its something you CHOOSE to do for the fun of it. Even after you are commanding a fleet of M1's and M2's and have a trade empire spanning the universe, you STILL have an incentive to jump in a TS and ply the trade lanes in person! The design of these games is very different to an MMORPG, where the earlier tasks, ships and items become completely redundant as you progress, and its intended to be fun all the way through the growing/creating process. By comparison, MMORPGs are designed with very steep hierarchies of obsolecent content and endgames you are supposed to want to reach.

Eve and MMORPG's are disgusting because for them this process is not about personal expression and creativity, but keeping these qualities down until a person has expended enough money 'grinding' the game to 'deserve' to be among the 'elite' where these things really happen.

You've never played EVE. A motivated player, fresh from the ****** tutorials, can get in a major battle as easily as a 5-year veteran. For that matter, many vets will use equipment they could have used years ago just because they prefer the gameplay over using the expensive stuff (which usually equates to big, slow battleships).

Time spent in EVE doesn't make you better than someone else, it just gives you more ways to achieve parity. In a week, I could take a new character to a decent level of training as a Frigate pilot, in a month the same for Cruiser. With the exception of percentages of slight advantage, a long-standing player who battles me with the same ship will only win from being more skillful, which has 0 correlation with EVE being of the MMO genre.

If what you say was true, why does it take a week to a month of presumably full time play to achieve what you just described? What are you doing to get there, and is it fun in itself? And why does it take a month if you already know all there is to know? 150 or so hours of gameplay is more than most people put into a game like X.

And as far as I remember, a lot of vets will use cheap stuff because they fear losing the good stuff. Some have quit the game entirely when they lost their dreadnaughts. Is this the kind of game you want to be involved in?

Even still, I will give you this - Eve has less levelling than most MMO's. But it compensates with some extremely harsh griding and unfun policies of its own.

Eve - heck, MMORPG's in general - are about bored, insecure people (or at least acting stupid) trying to impress at best, defeat at worst, other bored, insecure people while smart people make a profit off the whole thing (did I just describe humanity?!).

There is legitimate fun to be had in building something up, in watching things grow and in sorting out the problems that arise as part of this process and which cannot be experienced in any other way. Without a trading aspect, people would never experience how much fun can be had scouring the world for minable resources, running from pirates in a trade ship, watching their stations come into view or watching everything mill about them by their design and doing. That's what the philosophy of X (at least its 'build' aspect) should be.

And that eve is for insecure ppl. Is BS. Hehe you need a lot more guts when you can lose hundreds of $$ in seconds worth of stuffs. Than playing a save and reload singelpayer game.

Eve and MMORPG's are disgusting because for them this process is not about personal expression and creativity, but keeping these qualities down until a person has expended enough money 'grinding' the game to 'deserve' to be among the 'elite' where these things really happen. Lets face it, most people playing Eve or WoW just want to go raiding or fighting massive space battles, and the game just abuses these motivations by putting an artificial price on achieving them.

In these games, typically, it is not about watching emergent gameplay or designing intricate scenarios, nor is it about building and design and the problems that come with it. Building an empire in X has always felt a bit like engineering, although this aspect has often been undermined by tedium and poor design. In Eve or WoW, you are not a designer, engineer or creator - you are a cog in a wheel of players who wish to dominate other players for fun and to keep them in line.

It's like all the worst in humanity finds its way into these games. I despise them and I despise the tendencies of many on these forums to compete with each other as well. X should not be about competition between players and SETA and other features should not be limited/controlled to facilitate that. It should be about building another world and in our personal enclaves, in this post-reality, there is no zero sum on the worlds we create.

Ok, I don't think you ever played eve, or even know anything about it else that it is a MMORPG. it has nothing incommen with wow. Not even the multiplayer part, eve is ONE huge sheered server, with thens of tousens online at once. It has the most elaborate, dynamic and adaptive economy in a game in history, economist studys eves economy, hell you can even bye Nvidia grafic cards for ingame currency. You can't "go on raids", eve is harsh and unforgiving place, you stuff can be lost in a second, even scams is an aloud feature, ccp even used this game mechanics in a trailer. The universe is free as well, you can conquer systems, build space stations, complexes on planets, do research and industries and engage in diplomacy, and on top of that, a new game "dust514" will be linkted up to eve, so planetary fps warfare will happen. Hehe even ingame events has hit realworld news. I don't think we eve players are boring :-p

But this forum is not about other games, but don't bash games you know nothing about.

So you spend inordinate amounts of time ecking out an existence and your own trace on the world and it can be erased in an instant? Isn't this exactly the opposite of the creative process and creating worlds that I talked about? Of being 'sandbox'?

I know eve is complex, I didnt say it wasnt. But complexity, difficulty or effort expended is not the same thing as emergent gameplay and especially not creativity and engineering of a world.

I also never said Eve players were boring, although the argument may be made about anyone who spends hundreds of hours doing in a game what would be more productive and rewarding to do in real life (and MMO's sometimes do feel like real work). Surely that has to be a drain on your social skills in reality.

What I DID say was that the people putting in these hours into MMO's are generally bored in their real lives - which is probably evidenced by the very fact they put in all those hours into the game - and insecure - which is debatable but often comes with the territory of seeking approval from others in an MMO and putting in all those social-skill-killing hours.

You might say I'm being unfair to many and that's probably true. But I am focussed on the larger phenomenon of humongous, unfulfilling and unproductive activities taking up so much of so many people's lives with so very little to show for it. Did I just describe reality again?

Eve - heck, MMORPG's in general - are about bored, insecure people (or at least acting stupid) trying to impress at best, defeat at worst, other bored, insecure people while smart people make a profit off the whole thing (did I just describe humanity?!).

There is legitimate fun to be had in building something up, in watching things grow and in sorting out the problems that arise as part of this process and which cannot be experienced in any other way. Without a trading aspect, people would never experience how much fun can be had scouring the world for minable resources, running from pirates in a trade ship, watching their stations come into view or watching everything mill about them by their design and doing. That's what the philosophy of X (at least its 'build' aspect) should be.

Eve and MMORPG's are disgusting because for them this process is not about personal expression and creativity, but keeping these qualities down until a person has expended enough money 'grinding' the game to 'deserve' to be among the 'elite' where these things really happen. Lets face it, most people playing Eve or WoW just want to go raiding or fighting massive space battles, and the game just abuses these motivations by putting an artificial price on achieving them.

In these games, typically, it is not about watching emergent gameplay or designing intricate scenarios, nor is it about building and design and the problems that come with it. Building an empire in X has always felt a bit like engineering, although this aspect has often been undermined by tedium and poor design. In Eve or WoW, you are not a designer, engineer or creator - you are a cog in a wheel of players who wish to dominate other players for fun and to keep them in line.

It's like all the worst in humanity finds its way into these games. I despise them and I despise the tendencies of many on these forums to compete with each other as well. X should not be about competition between players and SETA and other features should not be limited/controlled to facilitate that. It should be about building another world and in our personal enclaves, in this post-reality, there is no zero sum on the worlds we create.

That is exactly my perspective, said much more completely and eloquently, specifically the part about creating, and engineering. I have played WAY too many MMORPGS, and I know they all eventually become just an abusive relationship with you on the bad side for the most part. In general, I really do not like the fact that someone else is telling me how to play, and what I should or should not be allowed to do.

In the end, I am sure there will still be an engineering (incorrectly labeled cheat) window scripted uo... but I like the concept of the trading networks, its just really slow all around. If I had 24 hours a day to play, it would still be slow in eve...

Nice to find common ground for once, although I hope we are not alone in this. There is really so very little to show for months sunk into MMORPG's because player's visions are put into competition, not parrallel.

Now I struggle to devise how this might be done differently, but to me that just suggests that a game should stay a game and I should not waste time on it if it needs to be designed to balance my needs and wants for the world against those of millions of others. It will all just end in tears, like so much of reality.

I'm not averse to putting in thousands of hours into a cause - most people are not either. I am just averse to putting it into something as pointless and unrewarding as an MMO when I could be playing dozens of more rewarding games (or books, or movies, or conversations etc) instead. I do realise this is a very personal thing though, and some will judge my own life patterns a grand waste of time. All the more reason to exclude them from my chosen avenues of creative outlet (and that's my point - I can do it in a single player game like X, but not in an MMO where other people interfere with my enjoyment).

Eve - heck, MMORPG's in general - are about bored, insecure people (or at least acting stupid) trying to impress at best, defeat at worst, other bored, insecure people while smart people make a profit off the whole thing (did I just describe humanity?!).
.

That is exactly my perspective, said much more completely and eloquently, specifically the part about creating, and engineering. I have played WAY too many MMORPGS, and I know they all eventually become just an abusive relationship with you on the bad side for the most part. In general, I really do not like the fact that someone else is telling me how to play, and what I should or should not be allowed to do.

In the end, I am sure there will still be an engineering (incorrectly labeled cheat) window scripted uo... but I like the concept of the trading networks, its just really slow all around. If I had 24 hours a day to play, it would still be slow in eve...

So what you say is that eve is to hard for you and you always end up on the lossing side, so it's a bad game? Ok, that was cruel, sry. But many ppl. Like to play in a univers where all the opponents are possible as good or better than you, and when you die there are real consicvens, and no reload button.

You should try eve again, because you both got it terrible wrong, you don't have to play the way others tell you, and you can with ease create more stuff inn eve than in any privies x games, stations, planetary installations, ships, tousends of weapons and modules. And then there are tousends of sub ingridiens you can mine, extract, react, combine and produce. The production and industry in eve is ekstreamly huge, and that you don't know this just tells me that you don't know the game.

It is a good thing that eve is slow, been playing for 6 years, and got myself a supercarrier (second largest ship), this way I always have a reason to come back to this game. And you don't need to play 24/7, play as a normal mission runner 2 hours a day, and you can by a grate fitted battleship every month. Or do planetary mining, basically does it self, you just start it, and collect minerals later. (it is a litle more complex than this if you what to earn the big money, but my point is, you can earn money on being strategic, you don't have to grind)

I realy don't what to way eve up with x, because there are to different games that I enjoy very much, and have way different gameplay. And with a mindblowing different budget. Eve is way harder than x just because in x, you are senter, there is save and load. And your opponents ai wont be competing with you the same way you compet with them. I play x sins it is complex, aye kandy(that eve will never match), and that the game pauses when I'm not playing.

Although I disagree with you on some things, I like your post.

The trouble of course is that eve takes so much time to play in the first place. What if you just cant find or justify that kind of time? And is it really time well spent when the hard opponents and human intelligence, which is a great resource making many things more realistic, also works against you any time you want to do a lot of world changing things? Is it worth it when what you really want to do is mess with many things in the world and a game like X, even with its dumb ai, lets you do that so much more quickly and easily?

Its not that I don't understand or appreciate the concept of Eve or MMO's where people build, together, entirely new and plausible worlds. Its that so much of those individual's creativity is wasted by the game design - our lives are not endless, and it comes at such costs to people's lives.

[St4n]

For the OP.

Use Cheatengine or some similar program. Give you a lot of money. Buy your capital.

Problem solved. (And that in much shorter time than the "SINZA-cheat".)

[Juno_NH]

sometimes amassing a large fleet in a sector takes ages because jump gates only allow 1 ship at a time and the reload is like 10 seconds so even 6 heavy fighters take a minute to get thru.

clearly its much longer for large ships that have to clear the area once thru.

seta is very useful for this aswell.

[Shrewd135]

sometimes amassing a large fleet in a sector takes ages because jump gates only allow 1 ship at a time and the reload is like 10 seconds so even 6 heavy fighters take a minute to get thru.

clearly its much longer for large ships that have to clear the area once thru.

seta is very useful for this aswell.

I have to say that this is one of the things most amazing to me. There is a solution to this that exists Using the game mechanics that also is more story like than if you just warped them all into the sector through a cheat.

Specifically, we live in universe R (the real world) and lets say the X universe is universe X, there are solutions to the problem in BOTH universes. In R, we can code something that makes a jumpgate 500 times larger if we choose, and cut collisions down by 99%... or in the X universe we can send a ship through the gate, have it fly to a staging area.... then drop a jump beacon. Organize the fleet to jump on your mark, then have them jump to the beacon...

2 solutions, both unrelated because the solutions are entirely within the 2 seperate universes.


I saw it first when I was watching a video of a guy that wanted to have a larger solar array..... so I thought, ok modify the solar array you have and make it larger, or create a new station type and model with 10 or 100 round cells added directly to it, problem solved... done.

But no, his solution was to just add a connector, and then build and tow 10 to 100 solar power plants together and just use his connector to connect them. So instead of a universe R solution entirely implemented in R then added to X, he did a minimal solution in R, and implemented the vast majority in X.

[angrytigerp]

If what you say was true, why does it take a week to a month of presumably full time play to achieve what you just described? What are you doing to get there, and is it fun in itself?

Skill training in EVE is based on training time, not active playing time; me using Battleships won't make the battleship skill train faster. Everything is dropped into a 'queue' and trains even when you're not playing.

And why does it take a month if you already know all there is to know? 150 or so hours of gameplay is more than most people put into a game like X.

You don't need to play the game. Veterans of EVE will often make backup characters and just let them skill up to what they need; and the system is set up to take a while for more advanced skills to train so that new players can keep playing with their "low-level" stuff (smaller ships) even as the big ship skills train up, so that everyone and their brother can't just skip to battleships and pay to win. In addition, every ship in EVE has a role in even the biggest fleet fight; a brand-new pilot, with a few days of skill points, can be what's called a tackler, which is a guy who goes in and disables the warp system of a target. And no, this isn't just some peon position; many people of all statuses and standings will fly a tackler.

And as far as I remember, a lot of vets will use cheap stuff because they fear losing the good stuff. Some have quit the game entirely when they lost their dreadnaughts. Is this the kind of game you want to be involved in?

You're remembering wrong, or more likely this is only at second hand and you misinterpreted what you were told. Veterans will often fly cheap 'fits' (ship setups) not for fear of losing anything, but because smaller stuff is faster and, in almost everybody's opinion (go ahead, ask around of people who PVP) much more fun. One of the mantras you'll often hear is 'never fly anything you can't afford to lose', and nobody will do so. It would be like selling literally EVERYTHING you have in X3 to buy an M2, and then you get it destroyed... now what? That risk is inherent to almost every game with the idea of player resources, and to make it out to be a fault of EVE is unfair.

[Probe1]

Eve - heck, MMORPG's in general - are about bored, insecure people (or at least acting stupid) trying to impress at best, defeat at worst, other bored, insecure people while smart people make a profit off the whole thing (did I just describe humanity?!).
[edited for brevity]

Dude.. come on with that garbage. You sound like you're 18, immortal and all knowing. Millions of people, including you, have played MMOs and you've just labeled a group of people larger than the imagination under one convenient stereotype.

3/10

But for the record, I found Eve Online really boring as well. And that's with my friends supplying me with an account, ships money everything so I could "jump" into going out and pvping. Boring game imo.

[A5PECT]

I'll echo Probe1.

I'm not big on MMO's either, but that's a really bigoted and ignorant remark about the genre and its players. Believe it or not, it is possible to have fun playing a game like EvE, and just because you don't understand other people's enjoyment doesn't mean they're bored. Or insecure. Or stupid.

At any rate, this thread isn't about EvE; it's about Rebirth. The question was whether or not the absence of the SETA mechanic will detract from the rest of the gameplay. EvE got dragged in because someone thought it was a good comparison. It isn't.

I'll try to summarize what I believe the argument at heart here is:

The absence of SETA will decrease the quality of the game as gameplay - specifically trading and empire-building - will be too slow without it.

To which I'll respond:

Stop thinking of Rebirth as a game designed with the removal of SETA, and think of it as a game designed without SETA.










I may or may not stop being so damn cryptic and fill the space above with an actual explanation. It depends on how sober I am in the morning.

[Notchi]

SETA isn't really necessary if egosoft managed to provide "something" to do while you are waiting your passive income. When you start a new game it's really boring to do the same trading runs so that you can afford yourself some more transports or a first station. Maybe with the plot ( or at least part of it) being mandatory that could speed things up a bit. In general you don't need SETA if the time you need to get from point A to point FUN is same as if you are using SETA in previous games. Better UI and different kind of micro management would also be nice... Anything to make the game more engaging to avoid shift+tab and net surfing while occasionally pressing SETA button when something drops you out of it.

[irR4tiOn4L]

Well let's end it at that difference of opinion then. But I stand by my remarks, whether people here like it or not. Do you expect me to be so intellectually bankrupt that I cannot say with honesty what I think of people who spend inordinate amounts of time and money on MMO's? That I cannot say its unhealthy and wrong?

Well, like it or not, I do think its unhealthy and wrong, and I do think MMO design is abusive of players. Just because millions do it doesn't change that, just as the collective madness of war does not change in characterwith the number of participants. I'm not saying MMO's are all bad or cannot be appreciated, but I am saying that all in all, they are wasted time and do not present much extra value over other types of games despite the inordinate amounts of money and time sunk. I'll leave it at that

[shadowrunner85]

Well let's end it at that difference of opinion then. But I stand by my remarks, whether people here like it or not. Do you expect me to be so intellectually bankrupt that I cannot say with honesty what I think of people who spend inordinate amounts of time and money on MMO's? That I cannot say its unhealthy and wrong?

Well, like it or not, I do think its unhealthy and wrong, and I do think MMO design is abusive of players. Just because millions do it doesn't change that, just as the collective madness of war does not change in characterwith the number of participants. I'm not saying MMO's are all bad or cannot be appreciated, but I am saying that all in all, they are wasted time and do not present much extra value over other types of games despite the inordinate amounts of money and time sunk. I'll leave it at that

Yes, let's end it in a difference of opinion. No, we don't what you to seam intellectually bankrupt, but that you assume that you know what's best for ppl. and that those ho doesent live according to your world view is stupid/boring/looked down on, may make you look like it.

All forms of gaming is no more than pastime, And adds little to your life. If you and me each has 10 houses a week free to play games, and you choose to play 4 different games, and I choose to play 1 or 2. What is the diffrece between you and me? We are bought waisting our time. And don't reply I'm wasting money, just because I can afford it you can't isn't an argument (in mother Norway we are a high cost high salary country, a month of subscribtion cost no more than an out-on-town beer, as long as I can pay in USD). And also just playing an MMO and 2-3 other games isn't that more expansive than playing 10 different games throuout a year.

SETA:
Is acutely good in some ways, sins it allows ppl. to play the game in the pace they prefer. And thats way eve got draged in to this debate, not all want x to be as extremely slow pace as eve. Some wants faste pace action, and other wants a slow buildup game. But I think X:R will offer bought, without the help of SETA. there will be an interesting campaign, and side quests, and it doesent seams like you have to do a loot of side grinding to go thru the campaign. And the game seams to offer a real interesting slow pace think, build, trade endgame. And btw. Passive income should start way lower than active income, then gradually increase to the state where active income is point less. At this point a hope X:R will offer a sort of empire/corporation conquer game play.

[danpaul88]

I find it interesting that people think SETA is necessary to build a trading empire. In one of my X3TC games I chose to avoid all use of SETA, always travelling in 'real' time. Admittedly this resulted in a fair amount of ordering the autopilot to fly through gates and reading a page or two of a book whilst it trundled its way there but I managed to build up a few small complexes in just a few days of gameplay (ie: 6-7 hours a day for 4 days or so).

Spend a fair bit of time chasing pirates around whilst waiting for hired TLs to get to where I wanted to build stuff and overall I found the experience quite rewarding.


That said I haven't played a SETA-free game since. It might be possible but the gate-to-gate travel time was a pain. The trading side of things however ticked over just fine, so I really don't think SETA is essential for a trading empire... some people are just impatient I think



I am looking forward to seeing how the new highways system in Rebirth works and what kind of travel times are likely if we wanted to get from one extreme corner of the highway network to the opposite extreme corner. Hopefully it won't be so long as to leave us all wishing for SETA again....